The 14 Most Trusted Health Sites

Here, 14 health sites you can trust (plus great apps and tweets!)

Your stomach hurts, so you Google "abdominal pain." You click on a promising listing or two — out of the 19,300,000 that offer themselves — but by the time you finish dodging the pop-ups and sorting out all the "sponsored links," you have a headache, as well. And even if you do land on a site that seems to offer the help you're looking for, you can't be sure the advice is accurate and up-to-date. That's why we put together this cheat sheet: a shortlist of trustworthy websites, Twitter feeds, and free apps covering common health issues. As Jessie C. Gruman, Ph.D., president and founder of the Center for Advancing Health, told us, "You don't need a lot of tools to be a well-informed patient — you just need the right ones." These sources, say the leading physicians and informatics experts we spoke with, are just what the doctor ordered.

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Feeling Good Starts Here

Breast Cancer

SITE WE TRUST: breastcancer.org Whether you're looking for reassurance, breaking news, or ammo for dealing with your health insurer, this nonprofit won't let you down

SITE WE TRUST: diabetes.org The place to start when you're first diagnosed — or warned you're on the way — this American Diabetes Association site covers everything from how to track your blood sugar to tricks for rejiggering recipes.

BOOKMARK: ndep.nih.gov Getting personal: Type in your age, diabetes status, and race, and this Web home of the government's National Diabetes Education Program matches you with appropriate publications, videos, and podcasts.

SITE WE TRUST: healthyminds.org From the American Psychiatric Association, discussions of nearly every mental health concern. Nice touch: specially tailored advice for teens, members of the military, seniors, Latinos, and other groups.

BOOKMARK: dbsalliance.org Support — including in-person and live online groups and links to local help — is the theme at the site of the National Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance.

TWITTER: @NIMHgov For research wonks: the latest findings on stress, antidepressants, and more from the government's National Institute of Mental Health.

APP: Depressioncheck (iPhone) Are you at risk for depression, anxiety, or other emotional upheavals? Take the research- validated test here.

Fitness

SITE WE TRUST: cdc.gov/physicalactivity Jump-start your fitness program with sample weekly workout plans from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

BOOKMARK: acefitness.org With some 200 workouts, this American Council on Exercise site helps you avoid guilt about not getting to the gym. And no more feeling like a klutz: You can see many exercises in action.

SITE WE TRUST: medlineplus.gov A trove of info from the National Institutes of Health — even the family pet gets a section. Covers more than 900 conditions and includes a guide to thousands of drugs and supplements as well as tools, videos, and tutorials.

BOOKMARK: familydoctor.org The "symptom checker flowcharts" at the Web home of the American Academy of Family Physicians are your go-to when you need to know whether that "funny feeling" calls for a trip to the ER.

TWITTER: @HarvardHealth Follow Harvard docs' tweets on hundreds of common health concerns, from allergies to bunions to zinc supplements.

APP: Passport to Good Health (iPhone) Like a mom (minus the nagging), it reminds you when it's time to refill an Rx, schedule a mammogram, have a checkup, and more.

Heart Health

SITE WE TRUST: hearthub.org The American Heart Association's patient site is info-loaded — prevention tips, recipes, a CPR video, and more.

BOOKMARK: womenheart.org From the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease, a site with heart that offers an online community and links to its Sister Match program, which connects heart patients to trained support volunteers.

Sites Better Left Unseen

DOCTOR-RATING SITES There are too many — over 30 — all competing, so you may find no more than an address for the doctor you're interested in. More seriously, a study of over 190 reviews uncovered good reason to suspect some are written by physicians themselves or their staffs. "They include information about academic titles, research, and services offered by the practice that most patients wouldn't know anything about," says study author Tara Lagu, M.D., of the Center for Quality of Care Research, Baystate Medical Center, in Springfield, MA.

DOT-COMS Even if it sounds like a health site, the ".com" is the tip-off that you're on a commercial site that may be trying to sell you something. We like sites ending in .edu and .gov — .orgs are generally fine, too, but the suffix isn't regulated, so it could land you on a commercial site.

FACEBOOK AND FRIENDS "Crowd diagnosis" is a favorite game on social-networking sites: You describe your symptoms and get dozens, even hundreds, of ideas about what's causing them. "But just because 50 people agree you have poison ivy doesn't mean they're right," says Peter Yellowlees, M.D., director of the health informatics graduate program at the University of California, Davis. "There's more opinion than expertise."